The meanest Flood

check his height and weight and you can bet the guy’s a dead ringer for the one we’re after.’
    Geordie laughed. ‘Limping down the street. I ask you? Who does the guy think I am? He might as well be dressed in a clown’s costume.’
    ‘I don’t understand how you can be so sure,’ Inge Berit said. ‘Some people do have a limp. The height and weight could be a coincidence.’
    ‘You’re right,’ Sam said. ‘But we work with statistics. In this situation if we see somebody with a limp and the right height and weight, we can be fairly sure he’s our guy. It’s circumstantial evidence, but we’re sure he’s watching Holly, waiting to see if I make contact. If there was another guy with the right height and weight, we’d put him on the list as well.’
    ‘And there was,’ Geordie said. ‘Somebody dressed like a sailor. But when he came up close he was the same guy. The limping guy without the limp and a different hat.’
    ‘Then why didn’t you stop him?’ Holly asked.
    ‘On what grounds?’ said Geordie. ‘Pretending to limp? What we have to do is find where he’s based, then we can watch his every move. And we can stay one step ahead of him.’
    ‘We’ll take him tomorrow,’ Sam said. ‘Once we know you two’re out of the way, doing some shopping on the Champs Elysees, I’ll take a walk along your street, maybe even go into your flat. You’ll have to leave us a key. Then, when our man makes his move, we’ll be waiting for him.’
    ‘Be careful, Sam,’ Holly said.
    He shrugged. ‘I can look after myself. Once we know you two are out of the country everything’ll go like clockwork.’
    ‘I hope so,’ Inge Berit said.
    ‘Relax,’ Geordie told them. ‘We’re professionals. We know what we’re doing.’
     
    ‘You OK?’ Sam asked.
    They’d stopped for a sandwich in a small cafe overlooking the harbour. Geordie had put away a baguette full of shrimps and mayonnaise without a word. He’d demolished a slice of cake covered in marzipan and was dropping irregularly shaped sugar lumps into his second cup of coffee.
    ‘Fine,’ he said.
    ‘Liar.’
    ‘I’m fine. I’m working, earning money. I’m eating and I’m sleeping. I’ve got good health and I’m young and I’m away from home in a foreign country which I haven’t been to before, and it’s great. I’m grateful to the master of the universe for giving me these privileges.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘But nothing. I’m having the time of my life.’
    ‘You’re missing Janet and Echo and you’re depressed.’
    ‘What about you?’ Geordie asked. ‘I suppose you aren’t missing Angeles.’
    ‘Yeah, I’m missing her, Geordie. But I’m admitting it.’
    ‘OK, I’m missing them. I’m not sleeping too good, thinking about them, worrying.’ He laughed. ‘A game of football would be good. You know what I mean? That’s what I usually do at home, works every time. All that aggression and sweat, the one thing in the universe makes you forget who you are.’
    Sam was quiet. He traced his finger through a spill of cold coffee on the wooden table. ‘I could use some of that,’ he said. ‘This guy is ravaging my past, picking out the good bits, the parts worth remembering, and laying them to waste.’
    He looked out over the water, fixing his eyes on the horizon. ‘I could hardly bear to look at Holly this morning. I kept seeing this spectre over her shoulder. Death as a dark shadow, a ravenous spirit searching her blood and her body for somewhere to be.’
    ‘Jesus, Sam. She’ll be out of the country tomorrow. We’ve done everything we can.’
    ‘Yeah, I know. I just hope it’s enough. With a guy like this, someone who believes passionately, you can never be sure how they’re gonna react. To kill these women just to set me up takes a really weird mindset. He’ll have everything stacked in his favour: God, morality, justice, truth. Because of something I did to him, or something he imagines I did to him.’
    ‘You should know who he is, Sam. Someone you’ve hurt so bad that he’s prepared to kill innocent people to get back at you.’
    ‘Yeah, there’s that as well,’ he said. ‘I think I should know who it is, too. I can’t come up with an answer, though. One thing I keep thinking is the guy must be nursing something from his childhood. It must’ve been traumatic. Something a young mind couldn’t cope with.’
    ‘Some kid you’ve wronged?’
    ‘I dunno, Geordie. And if it is that, some kid with a